AIBU to suggest that an INSET day on 12th September is annoying?

[Kbear]

1 and 2 Sept were INSET days and they went back on 3 Sept. Another INSET day this soon is annoying. Get 'em in and keep 'em in I say!! Seriously, when you've juggled days off work all summer another INSET day this soon is a PITA. Couldn't they tag it on to half term so if you're going away you get an extra day, or something useful like that?

I would imagine the school is having INSET on that day because conferences and other seminars with "expert" speakers/trainers aren't organised by schools so if schools wish all staff to benefit from the training they don't have a choice (and usually the cost of doing similar training as a single school would be outside most school's budgets).
I often find LAs organise things like literacy and numeracy conferences at very odd times in the year but as the government continue to introduce two new initiatives a week teachers need to be up to date in their knowledge.
Last year I attended two weekend conferences (unpaid) and a further training day in the middle of my Spring holiday (also unpaid) I wonder how many other professions would work extra days without pay.

I think a lot of mumsnetters would be gobsmacked if they saw what happens behind the scenes in a school. Teachers work very hard.

The issue of wraparound care is seperate to that of making sure that our teachers have the training to do their job properly.

I would like to see schools set up a creche that parents pay for everytime there is an inset day. I realise that space is difficult in many schools, but why not have the inset day in the hall and the creche in one of the classrooms. Or many schools do have seperate gym that is seperate to the hall. For failing that if the weather is not too bad/ cold a marque could to be set up on the playing field that could be used for childcare.

If the governant wants every mum to work then the problems that inset days cause working parents should be addressed.

Im sure that teachers performance management revws have to be done by October 30th and there must be a period of 30 days before that for a teacher to appeal/change their mind about the targets set.

This therefore means that it has to be done by 30th September!!

So it couldn't be tagged to October 1/2 term as it would only give 10 ish days instead of the 30 to change/appeal the targets set.

We did ours in the 2 training days at the beginning of term but this is possibly one expanation for a training day so soon after going back if they couldn't do it at the beggining of term.

Obviously these time frames for performance management were ot set by the school but some lovely interfering government bod!!!

ReallyTired - I'm not complaining about INSET days, I'm complaining about a week's notice for an INSET day when they haven't been back at school for a week yet. I now I'm not allowed to feel annoyed but I do but less so since MB, Hula and others have put me right about how INSET days are sometimes externally organised etc etc and therefore out of the control of the school.

All the other points about teachers please don't attribute to me, I never said anything detrimental about the teaching profession and never would.

You don't know anything about my job no more than I know about teaching but I have a stressful job too, where I have to work a lot of hours and I don't do for the love, do it for the mortgage. All I know is that teachers do know the deal when they start teaching which is probably why there aren't more teachers! I knew when I trained for my job that I would stressed out of my head for a lot of it but I still did it.

Ummm, Kbear. DD has an Inset day that day too and since I too work in a school and can't get a day off, can you have her, since you'll be taking the day off!

Wish she was a teensie bit older then I could not take the day off and she could look after my two !!!

I agree that school has not given you enough notice. The school I work for and my son's school give at least a term's notice of inset days.

Last year when my son started reception there was an INSET day on 24th Sep - the first day he was meant to be in all day. Reception parents ewre not told until September, though I knew because I had seen it on the website.

I agree that INSET days should where possible be tacked onto holidays unless an outside speaker is coming and a date near the holidays isn't possible. I'd like to see the first day of each term being an INSET day and then the Fri and Mon either side of May half term (being in my humble opinion, the nicest time of year to go on holiday (in the UK) and therefore to extend it by two INSET days would be fab (not for the teachers who also want an extended half term though I grant you).

By the way, I go to conferences at weekends from time to time and don't get paid extra and would not expect to - I see them as a bit of a jolly actually, if they're in a nice place (in November I am going to one in Edinburgh - I work for a publisher).

I don't have a problem with INSET days but I do have a problem with "academic mentoring days" where the kids get the day off just for a meeting for say 20 minutes in the day. Whatever happened to parents' evenings/afternoons?

We have a progress day, and we have found it to be far more helpful for parents and the students, than parents evening.

To start with it is much better attended, 98% of parent attend instead of the usual 50%

The reason that we have to shut for the day is simple. My last form had 30 children in it. Seeing 30 children, for 20 minutes each gave me a 10 hour day! Not something that you can tag o to the end of my normal day, which is already 8- 4.00

Those meetings also took place in a close room, in quiet, so more detailed, and possibly sensitive information, could be discussed.

the only criticism that I have had from parents is that we didn't start them early enough in their child's schooling

You should have been given more notice. That is annoying.

Whoever made the comment about teachers getting long holidays - I would love you to come and experience what it is like as a teacher for even 1 week. I am on maternity leave but when I was teaching, I was in at 7.30/7.40am every day. It was a good day if I left before 5pm. I often worked part of my lunchtime. Every week, I had a planning meeting until often after 7pm. Staff meetings every week until nearly 6pm. Never mind all the extra work done at home and the continous stress worrying about the children in the class, how they were progressing, dealing with the parents and all the ongoing assessment.

I could go on.

The NCT girls in my class were amazed that I was coming straight from school to NCT classes at 8pm as I had so much work to do (and this was up to taking maternity leave at 36wks). The other NCT girls were all in professional jobs (eg accountants) who earned double what I do and they had all left work really early as they were tired from being pregnant.

If teachers did not have such long holidays (during which we work anyway), we would end up in hospital.

I don't think anyone knows what they are getting into when they start teaching. It is bloody hard work.

It is also rewarding and I think that is why we continue.

The petition contains misinformation:

Teachers are paid all year so should work like the rest of the nation, all year.

Teachers are not paid all year.

The training is not held by private sector companies - people who deliver it are many and varied, and often it is inhouse.

Any more old threads to up with this nonsense then, dddangermouse?

Tgis is people goinga round bumping old threads for support for their causes

heck mamazon is long gonje isn;t she?

Start your own thread dddddddddddangermouse

dddangermouse, why are you resurrecting old threads to make ignorant assertions? As has been stated in your other thread, INSET days came out of teachers' holidays. Have you got that yet?

teachers really don't know what it is going to be like when they start the job, that's the reason why a big proportion of them leave in the first three years.

sqweegiebeckenheim is that true? that they leave? what because of the paperwork or the training etc?

50% of teachers leave within five years - it's a demanding job for lots of reasons, just one of them being ill informed prats with daft petitions.

DD1 is a biology teacher. She did go on holiday with her DH during the summer. But she also spent quite a bit of time preparing for September.

paperwork, bad behaviour, lack of ability to anything about said behaviour, and endless bureaucracy dangermouse. I left in three years.

I agree that INSET should not be held at inconvenient times for parents. I also think INSET is quite often a waste of time and money. I also think a lot of teachers do a lot of whinging about holidays when they should recognize they're on to a good thing. I'm a teacher by the way.

Who whinges about holidays??!!!

sqweegiebeckenheim don't blame you -hope your doing something fun and new away from the bureaucracy and the attitudes.

I am! thanks dangermouse!! I still obsessively read the education threads here though. Nothing like a bit of parental outrage!

sqweegiebeckenheim I know talk about getting shot down in flames - I posted on another thread, surely "the most easily rattled profession"... we are supposed to feel sorry for all the hard work - Moaning minnies what do they think parents do go running each morning and have a long lunch and finish work at 5pm on the dot!! Think i may keep having a look to see who else get's shot down next!!

It's like a firing line

dddangermouse - you are trying to make out that you are some kind of victim here, but what you did was re-start two very out of date threads to ask people to sign a petition moaning about INSET days. I don't understand why you're now trying to make out that you are some kind of innocent victim. Of what, exactly? Odd.

Also, in your post of 18:41:33, you imply that teachers and parents are somehow separate - "Moaning minnies what do they think parents do go running each morning and have a long lunch and finish work at 5pm on the dot" - has it occured to you that teachers are also parents?